Honda opens first UK hydrogen filling station

Awesome!
Honda has opened the first open access refuelling site for hydrogen powered vehicles at it’s manufacturing facility in Swindon. It’s open to anyone developing or using hydrogen powered vehicles, and will fill to 350 and 700 bar, the two standard filling pressures adopted by major manufacturers.

The aim behind the site is to encourage the development of hydrogen powered vehicles, including Honda’s own FCX Clarity. Hydrogen powered vehicles offer the same benefits as electric vehicles but with the advantages of improved range and no slow recharge time.

Thomas Brachmann, Head of Electrical Powertrain R&D at Honda, commented: “Hydrogen fuel cell technology is the ultimate transport solution; meeting environmental demands but also delivering the range and performance that customers expect.

“The cooperation on this project between vehicle manufacturers like Honda, infrastructure providers like BOC and the public sector can be a blueprint for future development.”

Source;
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/green-motoring/2011-09/honda-opens-first-uk-hydrogen-filling-station/

Honda FCX Clarity heads Glasgow hydrogen conference

Fresh from its appearance at Ecovelocity last week, the FCX Clarity is now making a star appearance in Scotland, appearing at the World Hydrogen Technologies Conference in Glasgow.

One of only a handful of series production hydrogen fuel cars in the world, the Honda-made car became the very first such car to enter production back in 2008. Currently available on a limited lease programme in the US and Japan, the car will now appear in Glasgow between September 14 and 18th, as the conference explores the future of a hydrogen economy.

Welcoming more than 150 leading hydrogen experts from around the world, the conference’s major theme this year is ‘Renewables to Hydrogen’ exploring the opportunities to create a clean, sustainable hydrogen economy from the many forms of available renewable energy. This is particularly relevant to Scotland and to the UK, given the substantial wind, wave and tidal resources available.

The conference was opened by Fergus Ewing, Scotland’s Minister of Energy, Enterprise and Tourism, (pictured) who fully endorsed the drive to renewable energy and cleaner fuels.

The Honda FCX Clarity works like an electric car with hydrogen creating the electric on-board through a ‘fuel cell stack’. The stack creates electricity from a reaction between hydrogen and atmospheric oxygen. This reaction produces only one emission; pure water which comes out of the tailpipe in the form of vapour. If hydrogen can be produced for commercial use from clean sources such as wind power then cars such as the Honda FCX Clarity can truly become zero harmful emissions.

Hydrogen cars depend on a hydrogen refuelling infrastructure however, currently absent in the UK. In response to this, Honda, in cooperation with BOC and Forward Swindon- are launching the UK’s first public hydrogen refuelling station, just off the M4, at Honda’s Swindon car plant, on September 20.

Source;
http://www.thegreencarwebsite.co.uk/blog/index.php/2011/09/15/honda-fcx-clarity-heads-glasgow-hydrogen-conference/

First Glimpse of the 2012 Euro Honda Civic Backend

First glimpse of The New Honda Civic -

Honda line-up at the 2011 IAA Frankfurt Motor Show



The new Honda Civic will be launched at the 2011 IAA Frankfurt Motor Show in September. Developed specifically for the European market, the new Civic will be offered exclusively as a five-door hatchback and will compete in the C-segment. It will reach European showrooms in early 2012.



The refreshed design of the new Civic features a rear combination light that works as a spoiler. The aerodynamic design of the spoiler manages the air flowing over the top and the sides of the car; this is just one example of how the new Civic has been refined.



Nearly all the body components have been redesigned with particular focus on ride and handling, reduced CO2 emissions, interior quality, while preserving the class-leading cabin and boot space and flexible practicality.



Find out more by watching the short film releases detailing the car's development. The films are hosted on an interactive media player you can easily download films and images or even embed the whole player in your site. http://multivu.com/players/English/51356-honda-motor-europe/



Another highlight will be the 2012 model year of the Honda Insight, which has received a facelift - more information about this model will be provided in due course.

The exhibition of cars will be completed by the display of the CR-Z, the CR-V, the Jazz and the Accord.



In addition, Honda will show a selection of its latest motorcycle and power equipment products.



The future according to Honda will be portrayed by showing the Honda EV Concept and the EV-Neo - Honda's electric vehicles on four and two wheels, as well as the FCX Clarity fuel cell electric vehicle and the Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle platform display.



Source;

http://www.hondanews.eu/en/news/index.pmode/modul,detail,0,1951-DEFAULT,21,text,1/index.pmode

Honda FCX Clarity debuts in UK at the EcoVelocity Show

by Abhishek Chaliha

The hydrogen powered next generation Honda FCX Clarity has been around for a couple of years now and it makes electric cars look like dinosaurs. Read on to know more about the vehicle that is undoubtedly the future of motoring

Honda’s advanced FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell car is the world’s first production fuel cell car. This zero emissions vehicle is as practical and convenient as a fossil fuel powered car. The car runs on hydrogen and the only end product is water. But unlike electric cars that have a confined driving range limited by the battery and take an eternity to charge the FCX Clarity can be refuelled at a hydrogen filling station just the way a gasoline powered car is refuelled, it takes about the same time to fill up its hydrogen tank as it takes to fill up a normal fuel tank.



The vehicle is based on an entirely new fuel cell platform called Honda V Flow which is powered by an efficient, highly compact and powerful Honda V Flow fuel cell stack. This new fuel cell stack by Honda featured huge improvements over weight, efficiency, driving range and power over that of other fuel cell stacks. The new fuel cell stack and hydrogen motor have overcome all the drawbacks of a traditional hydrogen vehicle, which means that the FCX Clarity looks like a normal car with none of the drawbacks of a car that uses alternative sources of fuel. With the FCX Clarity Honda have proved the real world performance and appeal of a hydrogen powered car can be the same as that of a traditional car powered by fossil fuel. The Honda FCX Clarity has a range of 432 kilometres on a single tank of fuel.

The reason for the failure of electric cars and hybrids is because they fail to meet the real world practicality and performance of a gasoline powered car. Electric cars have a terrible driving range and have poor cabin space because of all the batteries packed in here and there. Hybrids prove no point at all as there are small diesel cars that are more economical. The ride, handling and performance of these vehicles are not at all good due to heavy batteries and uneven weight distribution.

The Honda FCX Clarity has none of those drawbacks. The hydrogen motor upfront has only one moving part so reliability will be very good. The performance of the vehicle is at par with other four door family sedans of its size. In short the FCX Clarity will do to the gasoline powered family car what it has been doing to electric cars, it renders the other completely useless.

The FCX Clarity uses compressed hydrogen from its hydrogen tank and combines atmospheric oxygen in the fuel stack where energy from the reaction is converted into electricity to power the electric motor which drives the wheels of the car. The main components of the car include an electric motor, hydrogen tank, fuel cell stack and a battery pack. All the components have been made compact and distributed throughout the vehicle for optimising space, comfort and drive dynamics.

As with any invention initially the cost of the product is high. But given a mass production of these vehicles the FCX Clarity will cost the same as a normal four door family sedan to buy and maintain. Hydrogen is one of the most abundant substances in the atmosphere but it is very complex and expensive to extract from the atmosphere and store. Once technology develops and can extract and store hydrogen on a large scale there will be no looking back, hydrogen is the fuel of the future. As of now it is only limited by technology.



The Honda FCX Clarity was made available to the public on lease for a fixed amount of time in the United States of America and Japan, so that customers could experience the car over a period of time. Elsewhere in the world it did not make its presence felt primarily due to the lack of hydrogen filling stations. Between the 8th and 11th of September 2011 it will make its UK debut in the low carbon motor festival called the EcoVelocity Show. Alongside the FCX Clarity will be Honda’s range of eco-friendly hybrid cars, the Jazz Hybrid, CR-Z and the Insight. Visitors will get a chance to test drive these cars on a ‘just turn up’ basis. The EcoVelocity Show held at Battersea Power Station will showcase to prospective buyers the latest in eco-friendly automobile technology.

Source;

http://www.zigwheels.com/news-features/news/honda-fcx-clarity-debuts-in-uk-at-the-ecovelocity-show/9401/2

Honda FCX Clarity fuel-cell car shown off

Honda has announced that it will be showing off what it claims is the world's first production fuel-cell car, the FCX Clarity, at the EcoVelocity show next month.



The FCX Clarity is designed to use hydrogen fuel cells as its power source, offering far greater performance than a traditional all-electric vehicle while maintaining the same zero harmful emission baseline.



While fuel-cell cars are nothing new, they've never made it to a production model before - and Honda claims that's exactly what it will be showing off at the EcoVelocity event, held between the 8th and the 11th of September at the Battersea Power Station.



The company is keeping full details of the Clarity's specifications under wraps until the show starts, but has explained that the vehicle offers an impressive 270-mile range per fill, is capable of topping up its hydrogen reserves as easily as a petrol or diesel car can refuel, and has water vapour as its only emission.



It's also keen to point out that the Clarity isn't an experiment, or a concept car, but a fully-certified road-legal vehicle built at the same factory as Honda's other models..



The company will also be showing off a redesigned five-door Insight, the CR-Z sporty hybrid, and a hybrid edition of the popular Jazz that extends its fuel economy to an impressive 64.2mpg - a 23 per cent improvement over the standard Jazz edition.



Author: Gareth Halfacree



Source;

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/car-tech/1286842/honda-fcx-clarity-fuel-cell-car-shown-off

Daimler and Honda most likely for fuel cells

Boulder, Colorado – Daimler and Honda are most likely to bring light-duty fuel cell vehicles (FCV) to market, according to a new report by Pike Research. The study found that several of the major global automakers have aggressive programs to develop a commercial FCV as part of their suite of sustainable vehicles, while others have pulled back and a few new players have entered the arena.



“Automakers will continue to refine their products between now and the 2014/2015 deadline for commercial launch,” said senior analyst Lisa Jerram. “In order to meet this target, the OEMs must continue to test and refine their fuel cell systems as well as the vehicle integration and optimization. They will also be focused on driving down vehicle costs.”



Jerram said that Daimler attained the highest overall score in the report as it has laid out a clear path to producing a commercially viable FCV. Other contributing factors include its strong relationships with infrastructure and government partners, and its recent announcement to partner with Linde on infrastructure development, but it has made ambitious announcements on fuel cell technology readiness in the past that did not come to fruition.



Honda is the runner-up in the study based on the high-quality execution of its Clarity FCV, its efforts to lay the groundwork for a commercial launch and its continued public commitment to FCV commercialization, although Pike noted the Clarity’s slow rollout.



Source;

http://www.autos.ca/general-news/daimler-and-honda-most-likely-for-fuel-cells

Honda UK: Honda joins Clean Energy Partnership with 2 FCX Clarity vehicles

Honda and the Clean Energy Partnership (CEP) have announced today that Honda will become the newest member of the CEP programme, providing further impetus to the hydrogen movement in Europe.

CEP is Europe's leading fuel cell vehicle and hydrogen infrastructure demonstration project, bringing together expertise from vehicle manufacturers, infrastructure and energy companies, and the German Government. CEP is designed to prepare the ground for market entry of hydrogen mobility in Europe.

Honda has been running fuel cell electric vehicles on European roads since 2009 and will support CEP activities with 2 FCX Clarity fuel cell electric vehicles.

Ken Keir, Executive Vice President of Honda Motor Europe said, "Honda firmly believes that hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles are the ultimate solution in reducing CO2 emissions from road transportation. Participation within CEP with the ground breaking FCX Clarity will demonstrate the viability of fuel cell technology and will also support the essential development of a European hydrogen refuelling infrastructure."

Honda joins the Partnership at the same time as the industrial gas supply company, Air Liquide, demonstrating CEP's value in bringing together vehicle manufacturers and energy companies to support the development of hydrogen based mobility in Europe.

Dr. Klaus Bonhoff, Chairman & Managing Director of NOW GmbH1, remarked: "The CEP is the NIP's2 nucleus for preparing the market for future proof mobility based on hydrogen and fuel cells. The partnership's continuous growth clearly demonstrates the industry's commitment to making zero-emissions mobility possible. We have to cooperate internationally to achieve this, which makes the addition of Air Liquide and Honda to the CEP all the more important. "

Ends


Editors Notes

1 NOW GmbH: National Organisation for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology whose mission is to coordinate and manage market preparation programmes for products and applications based on hydrogen, fuel cell and battery electric powertrain technology. NOW is a German state organisation. It is wholly owned by the federal government, represented by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development (BMVBS).
2 NIP: The German National Innovation Programme for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology, run by Federal Ministry of Transportation

Source;
http://www.hondanews.eu/en/news/index.pmode/modul,detail,0,1828-DEFAULT,21,text,1/index.pmode

Car Advice: Honda FCX Claritry Information update

By Anthony Crawford May 17th, 2011

Southern California, for all it’s smog (and trust me it still hangs in the San Fernando ‘Valley’ twenty-four seven) it still regarded as the automotive ‘Green’ capital of the world, when it comes to big cities.

There are also thousands of Toyota Prius’ within the California state lines and while they are certainly classified as ‘environmentally friendly’ the ‘Green’ star must surely go to Honda’s FCX Clarity.

Launched in 2008, the Clarity is a proper fuel cell electric vehicle with zero emissions and in some cases, offers 5 minute refuelling times. The other more important news is that the 26 lucky Honda Clarity customers, who lease the car for a grand total of US$600 per month, never have to worry about the price of petrol, regardless of what happens in the Middle East. You see – hydrogen is free. At least, for the time being it is.

FCX Clarity drivers now have access to seven ‘fast-fill’ hydrogen refuelling stations throughout Southern California and last Friday, the world’s first station supplied by an existing hydrogen pipeline opened across the street from Toyota’s Motor Corp’s sales division.

The new Royal Dutch Shell hydrogen station will mainly service test fleets from the likes of Toyota (who incidentally lease the land to Shell), Daimler AG, Hyundai Motor Co and General Motors and of course, those fortunate Honda Clarity drivers.

Honda hopes to have at least 200 FCX Clarity cars on the road within a few years. In traffic congested place like Los Angeles, there is an even greater benefit to driving this ultra green Honda. The deal is that fuel cell vehicles get an automatic ‘white sticker’, which qualifies them to travel in the transit lanes (high occupancy lanes) and that goes for a single driver with no passengers.

It’s a great deal if you can get it, but if it’s that good, why aren’t there thousands of them on the road all over the world?

It’s a question of dollars – they cost plenty to build and it’s likely that Honda looses money on each and every Clarity they make.

Five years ago, Ford said that their fuel cell Focus cost $1 million to build although, Toyota said this year, that the actual costs have come down by 90 percent, which would mean US$100,000, but that’s still way out of the ball park for average consumers.

That said Toyota says that they also plan to release their own fuel cell model by 2015 at a cost of around US$50,000. It makes huge sense when you weigh up the benefits. Hydrogen can be made from natural gas or water, you can refill your car in minutes with a range of several hundred kilometres or more and the clincher, and there are no exhaust emissions.

Whichever way you cut it, the only sustainable fuel model for the global automotive industry is hydrogen fuel cells. The Hybrids and electric plug-in vehicles are simply stop/gap solutions while the collective technology partners work it all out on the fuel cell front.

Source;
http://www.caradvice.com.au/119109/honda-fcx-clarity-%E2%80%93-as-%E2%80%98green%E2%80%99-as-it-gets/

Future Tech Watch: Automakers Try To Sell Government On Fuel Cell Cars

Honda's fuel cell electric car, the FCX Clarity, can go about 240 miles on a tank of hydrogen fuel. Compared with gasoline, that's about 60 miles to the gallon. The only emission is water so pure you could drink it.

The company has been building a limited number of these cars since 2005, so Honda was surprised when Secretary of Energy Steven Chu claimed it would take four technological miracles to make fuel cell cars viable in the marketplace.

"Simply put, he's wrong on those points. He has bad advice," Honda's Steve Ellis said at southeast Michigan's sole hydrogen fueling station. "Automakers are not foolish. We're not going to invest in technology that we see as a dead end."

The Clarity costs $600 a month to lease, but if you add in all of Honda's research and development costs, each one is probably worth tens of millions of dollars. Ellis says the costs are coming down, though — from the hydrogen fuel, which is made from natural gas, to the cost of the fuel cells. Producing them in volume will really bring the costs down, he says.

"Ten years ago, if we were looking under this hood, it would be like duct tape and baling wires," he says. "So it was all an engineering exercise. This car, we're handing the keys to customers, saying, 'Here's your car, see you in six months. Nothing to see here folks.' "

But the keys are being given only to people in southern California, where there's a cluster of hydrogen fueling stations, built with the help of state subsidies. Even if Chu changes his mind about the miracles, the price tag remains a problem.

Oliver Hazimeh of the management consulting firm PRTM says battery electric cars like the Volt and the Leaf are getting cheaper faster, which is why batteries are getting the nod from the government.

"By 2015, even five years from now, you will probably get a Nissan Leaf-type vehicle on the battery side for probably $25,000," he says. "That same vehicle in the fuel cell configuration will probably still be $45,000 to $50,000."

But fuel cell proponents say that's not a fair competition. The government spent more on battery electrics in just the past two years than it did on fuel cells over the past decade. James Warner, director of policy at the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association, says cutting funding sends the wrong message to car companies developing fuel cell cars like Honda, GM, Toyota, Daimler and Hyundai.

"By all accounts, they are ready to commercialize these vehicles by 2015," he says.

Warner has a bigger worry than less federal funding. Under a continuing budget resolution, Chu has no mandate to spend anything at all on fuel cell technology.

"The secretary if he so chose could end these programs today," he says.

A statement from Chu suggests he is likely to stick with President Obama's proposed budget, which cuts research and development by about half, but eliminates funding for the commercialization of fuel cell cars. That means it could take even longer for people who don't live in southern California to get a hydrogen fuel cell car to drive.

Source;
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/19/135518929/automakers-try-to-sell-government-on-fuel-cell-cars

Honda's 'road to zero emissions'

Honda is very much looking to the future - and a clean one too. It will use the Geneva show to strut its environmental credentials

"Road to Zero Emissions" is the theme of Honda's stand at Geneva, where it will showcase its EV Concept electric vehicle and a platform for mid-sized plug-in hybrids.

The concepts - first unveiled at the LA Auto Show in November 2010 - aim to illustrate the current technology of hybrids, alongside the "near-future" technology of plug-in vehicles and the ultimate goal of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles, such as the company's FCX Clarity.

Both the EV Concept and the plug-in hybrid platform are integral to the "Honda Electric Mobility Network", the company's approach to reducing CO2 emissions through innovative products, energy-management and energy-production technology.

Honda says its EV Concept hints strongly at the direction and styling for its forthcoming production battery electric vehicle, the Fit EV, which will be introduced in the US and Japan in 2012. The EV Concept is designed to meet the daily driving needs of town and city dwellers and has the same five-passenger layout as the Jazz. It will achieve an estimated 100-mile driving range per charge.

The plug-in hybrid platform showcases Honda's next-generation, two-motor hybrid technology set to debut in 2012. Integrated into a mid-size saloon, the plug-in hybrid is aimed at motorists who make short, frequent trips in all-electric mode, but also need long-distance capability.

Source;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/motor-shows/geneva-motor-show/8328219/Hondas-road-to-zero-emissions.html

Zero-Emission Vehicle Regulations Get Tougher for 2012 - Feature

Here's an interesting read....
California Dreaming: The new CARB diet.
BY KEITH BARRY, PHOTOGRAPHY BY MORGAN SEGAL, ROY RITCHIE, AND THE MANUFACTURERS, ILLUSTRATION BY SEAN MCCABE January 2011

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is trying to use a version of a “cap-and-trade” policy to stimulate automakers to build Zero-Emission Vehicles (ZEVs). CARB has mandated that starting in 2012, major automakers will have to produce a certain number of ZEVs. If an automaker can’t build enough to satisfy the regulation, it will be able to purchase credits from those that make more ZEVs than are required, thus covering its own shortfall. While it may sound onerous, it may also sound familiar—the latest ZEV mandate grew out of more than 20 years of CARB regulations. And during that time, CARB learned that the government can’t force engineers to build new technology, just as automakers learned how to use the regulatory process for their own good.

A Mandate With Destiny

Two decades ago, gas was cheap and electric-car technology had languished since the early-Eighties fuel crisis. Aside from a niche market of environmentalists and early adopters, the general public wasn’t interested in a car with a limited range and a high MSRP. Still, California had a pollution problem, and CARB, somewhat speciously, sought to reduce smog by encouraging automakers to build tiny volumes of  ZEVs. In 1990, CARB announced that it would require that ZEVs make up two percent of every automaker’s fleet by 1998, increasing to 10 percent by 2003. As the technology advanced, went the rationale, costs would come down and ZEVs would gain widespread acceptance. Automakers balked, arguing that it was impossible to build that many commercially viable ZEVs in eight years. CARB and automakers spent the better part of  the ’90s in court.

A compromise came in 2003 when CARB replaced the strict mandate with incentives for manufacturers to build ZEVs. Automakers that sold cars in California now had to earn a certain amount of yearly credits by building low-emission vehicles lest they incur fines. By 2008, 10 other states that follow CARB regulations (Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont) had adopted the incentive-based ZEV mandate.

Automakers earned full credits by building ZEVs and partial credits for hybrids and gas-powered Ultra Low-Emission Vehicles (ULEVs). If an automaker couldn’t earn enough credits with its own product, it could buy credits from a company with an excess of credits, essentially subsidizing the creation of ZEV technology without assuming the risk of developing it in-house. Carmakers that didn’t comply could be fined $5000 per credit not produced, though CARB has yet to levy a penalty. For the past seven years, most manufacturers met the mandate with a mix of hybrids and gas-burning ULEVs, plus a few hydrogen fuel-cell or electric cars. Automakers negotiated the buying and selling price of credits on their own, reporting sales to CARB after the fact.

Cutting Carbs

Starting in 2012, CARB regulations get stricter, requiring large-volume automakers that sell more than 10,000 vehicles in California yearly—currently Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Ford, GM, and Chrysler—to produce among them a total of 7500 ZEVs between 2012 and 2014, a figure that rises to 25,000 for the 2015-to-2017 time frame. Also starting in 2012, each individual automaker must earn a certain number of ZEV credits depending on its sales numbers. A percentage of those ZEV credits must be “pure,” or earned solely from the sale of ZEVs and not from selling hybrids or gas-burning ULEVs. Automakers that don’t sell that many ZEVs must buy “pure” ZEV credits from other manufacturers. Credits expire after three years.
“We want people to earn credits and use them,” says Anna Gromis-Wong, an air-pollution specialist at CARB. “We want to get out of a demonstration phase.”

Currently, only all-electric vehicles such as the Tesla Roadster and the upcoming Nissan Leaf—plus hydrogen fuel-cell cars such as Honda’s FCX Clarity and Mercedes-Benz’s F-cell—meet the ZEV regulation. The much-touted Chevy Volt doesn’t count as a ZEV because it has an onboard internal-combustion engine. Carmakers seem to be tolerant of the new regulations. Whether it’s to reduce airborne pollutants, cut greenhouse-gas emissions, or wean Americans from foreign oil, it seems that this time around—like it or not—ZEVs are here to stay.

For the rest of the article with pic's, follow the link;
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/11q1/zero-emission_vehicle_regulations_get_tougher_for_2012-feature